The Atkins Diet Works!
The Atkins Nutritional Approach is focused on healthy lifestyle goals and common sense nutrition by incorporating an optimal nutritional mix. This mix focuses on intelligent carbohydrate intake (high fiber and low sugar), adequate protein consumption, optimal intake of vitamins and minerals and a balance of natural fats. The goal is to achieve better nutrition, better health outcomes, increased energy and performance! In addition, you will be building muscle, slowing down the aging process and managing your weight the healthy way.
With the Atkins Nutritional Approach, you’ll enjoy 3 meals and a daily snack that provide you the nutrition you need while limiting your carbohydrate intake based your current carbohydrate level. Your meal plan will be further customized based on your preferences – including whether you want to include butter, bacon and more in your plan!
Basic Atkins Philosophy
By limiting your carbohydrate intake initially to 20 grams daily, you’ll jump-start your weight loss and switch over to fat metabolism. As you get closer to your goal, you’ll slowly add back healthy carbohydrates to continue to promote weight loss and adopt this healthy lifestyle.
The Atkins Advantage Plan consists of five core principles designed to help you keep you energy levels steady and strong from morning till night. Put these five elements together – high protein high fiber, high intake of vitamins and minerals low intake of sugar and the eliminate of trans-fat.
What Is Fitness?
Aristotle helped define the standards of fitness 2,500 years ago when he taught that a thing that suits its purpose well is fit. Fortunately for us, the cardiovascular system, lungs, skeleton, muscles, endocrine system and all the other amazing components of the body function for our purpose: to live well.
Exercising aids fitness in numerous ways, each involving one or more of those systems.
Increased physical activity causes the heart to work harder than at rest. That increases blood flow, floods tissues with fresh oxygen and removes cellular waste products.
Exercise causes the lungs to draw in extra oxygen to bathe the tissues and help power the heart. Exhalation removes carbon dioxide, a waste product of certain biochemical reactions.
Regular, moderate exercise helps raise HDL (High-Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol (the ‘good’ type). It helps regulate blood sugar levels and converts stored fat into sugars that are used to provide energy. That process also prevents obesity.
Hoodia Vs Alli
The Diet Pill War
Wow! There certainly been a lot of buzz about Alli lately, the marketing campaign for this product has been huge!! TV commercials, Massive displays at WalMart, Costco and leading retailers. This would lead any thinking person to believe that Alli is the most effective weight loss pill on the market to date!!
But… I have a few problems with Alli, One, according to the Alli own studies the actual weight loss from this product isn’t that great:
“research showed that people taking orlistat(Alli) and following low-fat diets lost almost five percent of their initial body weight, about seven to15 pounds, over four months,”
… and Two, the list of side effects!! Just read the following:
Suzanne Somers Weight Loss Plan
Suzanne Somers Weight-Loss Plan – provided by: eDiets.com
The Suzanne Somers Weight-Loss Plan on eDiets is much more than just a diet. It is a healthy approach to eating that can help you stay slim and sexy for the rest of your life.
According to Suzanne, getting your sugar under control is a major factor in controlling your weight. That’s why she recommends avoiding so-called “Funky Foods” such as sugars, caffeine, alcohol and high-starch foods like white flour and potatoes. These foods can create a thick mid-section because of their high insulin levels.
“I don’t eat any sugar, and I don’t eat anything that my body converts to sugar,” Suzanne says.
The Suzanne Somers Weight-Loss plan has two basic phases: Level One (and Almost Level One) and Maintenance. Level One is the entry level to the Suzanne Somers Weight-Loss Plan, intended for eDiets members who want to lose weight. During Level One, you will eliminate Funky Foods, separate everyday foods into the four “Somersize” food groups (protein, fats, vegetables, carbohydrates and fruit) and create delicious meals by combining foods in combinations that aid in weight control and digestion. Even during this introductory phase of the plan, you will get to eat whenever you are hungry.
Exercise, The Diet Partner
Most people will try a hundred different fad diets, at least as many nutritional supplements and even all sorts of wacky alternatives. But, getting them to exercise can be a real challenge.
Nevertheless, it’s an inescapable fact that proper diet has to be accompanied by an age-appropriate, regular exercise program – if the goal is good health and an attractive body. Diet is essential, but exercise is its essential partner. Diet provides the proper fuel, but exercise uses that fuel to generate health and fitness.
There’s no need to become a fitness fanatic, but there are several simple exercises you can begin today. Start a daily stretching routine of at least 10 minutes before doing any vigorous training. A 20-minute walk every other day is a great beginning for those not used to exercise.
Work up to more effort slowly. Most of those new to exercise get discouraged and quit too soon because they try too hard at first. This produces soreness and sometimes injury. That reduces the motivation.
Nutrition 101
In order to optimize your health a good diet is essential. But, with all the fad diets around it can be difficult to know what is ‘good’. Nutrition science to the rescue! Though some things are still controversial, numerous studies reinforce the following basic information.
A healthy diet requires not just items from the four basic food groups, but in the proper proportion. The average person will need about 2000-2500 calories (sometimes more for larger men, less for women and those looking for rapid weight loss). About 50% of those calories should come in the form of carbohydrates, with 30% from fats (yes, fat is good!) and 20% from protein.
Carbohydrates are the main source of compounds needed for energy. Simple sugars, such as glucose and fructose, are rapidly broken down in the intestine and absorbed. Some processing starts the minute they hit your tongue. Complex carbohydrates – starches, such as those found in potatoes – take longer, but are also healthy in moderation.
Fats are chemically similar to carbohydrates, and contain fatty acids essential to health. Proteins are lysed (split) to make amino acids, that are then recombined to form proteins used in muscles and other structures.
Meat is a valid and healthy source of protein for almost everyone. About 3 ounces per meal is about right for the average sized person. A cup of pasta is a good source of carbohydrates. Two cups of leafy green vegetables supply fiber, minerals and vitamins.